Rosey

Rosey is a clever girl. She's always trying to find workarounds to get biscuits. Like me, she loves her treats. But this can be a problem when I'm trying to train her.

While on walks, she had a tendency to bark at people. She doesn't bite, she never has which I explain to people right away when they look concerned about her behavior. She walks right up to people and stands there barking at them. I can always get her attention off of the person she is barking at so we can continue our walk, but it can be stressful.

One day I decided I would do some research about dogs who bark at people when they are taken for a walk and find out if anyone had a trick for stopping that conduct. I was doubtful about it but thought I would try anyway.

I was overjoyed when I found one trainer's website had a video demonstrating how she taught several dogs to ignore other people when they were taken for a walk. Before the training, every time someone would walk by, the dogs would lunge and bark at the passersby. After the training, the dogs ignored the other people.

Wow, a miracle, I thought. The training was simple enough. I would just give Rosey a treat to distract her until the person she barked at was past us.

But wait, this is Rosey I'm talking about and Rosey is no normal dog.

It worked ok for a while until Rosey figured out barking at someone meant she would get a biscuit. Instead of distracting her and stopping the barking at people passing by, it encouraged her to look for anyone near and far to bark at.

Soon every time she saw someone she would bark then quickly turn around and look at me expecting to get a treat. I thought it was cute at first until I caught on to what she was doing. Rosey had outsmarted me.

"This is not how this was supposed to work," I said to Rosey. What did I do wrong? I thought.

I stopped giving Rosey the "distracting biscuits" because it was encouraging the barking rather than stopping it. I was going through a lot of biscuits before I realized this idea had backfired.

Right around the time I was realizing I had failed in training her not to bark at people, our city opened up a new dog park. Rosey was never mean, she just liked to bark at everyone. I thought maybe socializing with other doggies and their people would calm the barking.

When we first entered the dog park, Rosey was expecting a treat for every bark. She barked then turned around looking for a treat. Still cute, but I had to stop this behavior.

I showed her my hands and said, "I don't have any treats".

It didn't take long for her to learn she wasn't getting a treat for barking, however, she continued to bark. She barked at the people on her way to the gate of the park. She barked while in the park, and she barked as we left.

It's been several months since we started going to the dog park. She doesn't bark quite as much, but people are getting to know Rosey as the noisy one. The good news is no one seems to mind her barking.

Someone said, "There's always one noisy kid in the park."

Rosey really likes the dog park. She especially likes barking at the dogs in the small dog area, which is next to the big dog area. She barks at the fence until one of the little dogs comes over to her. First, they sniff each other then they run back and forth along the fence like they are chasing each other.

Rosey is like one of those people you meet who never stops talking. It's just who she is. And, I adore my talkative little girl.